I stopped and stared at him, then I burst into laughter.
“A fae?” I chuckled. “As in Tinkerbell?”
I returned to unpacking a bunch of bananas, still giggling at the thought. I was never a big fan of Disney and princesses, but the idea of a tiny winged faerie needing birth control sounded hilarious. I looked back at him, hoping he would join in the joke but his face remained dead serious.
“They are very beautiful,” he continued, “the fae. Especially the males. I thought that you might have found one in the forest and decided to have some fun. That was all.”
“You can’t seriously believe in faeries? Oryou do, you do?” I howled and a tiny bit of saliva forced out of my mouth from the big exhale and laughter outburst. I needed to grab my stomach. Something about making jokes while he remained so serious made me laugh even harder. After about thirty seconds more, seeing that his face remained a sketch of seriousness, I gave up and breathed the last of the laughter out.
“It’s curious that you come to stay in one of the four corners of heaven, as people call them, yet you take no interest in discovering the history of the place. Maybe you met several fae already but your human idiocy kept you from seeing the truth.” He looked at me in disgust as he uttered the words.
I frowned and wanted to protest but Rhylan raised a hand to shut me up and continued. “Considering that you are here and you are who you are, I would show slightly more respect.” He stood and took big steps towards the door, then opened it to say, “I hope that by the time we see each other again, you will take things more seriously. I really hopeyou do, you do” he mocked me and slammed the door frame shut.
I stopped in shock as the bang of the door echoed in my head, then spat a few curses in his direction and returned into the kitchen to finish unpacking the delivery. I had read the legends but seriously, how can he expect me, or anyone for that matter to take them seriously? The way he talked about the fae, with such conviction and in present tense, as if they were truly real, surprised me.
I was aware that many cultures thrived on folk tales and I had read a Swedish anthology of tales before I came here, some of those stories mentioned fae, mermaids and even elves, amongst all the other fantastic creatures to which the ancient Swedes prayed to and left offerings for. Maybe Rhylan came from a family that remained considerate of traditions, but if that was the case, he should have let me know instead of slamming my door and admonishing me in such a rude way.
I was more intrigued by his reaction than anything else, so after I poured myself a tall glass of wine, I returned to the laptop and opened a new google tab in which I wrote one word: ‘fae’. Amongst definitions and pictures, the first and most reliable result from a research perspective was Wikipedia, so I opened the page and started reading a twenty thousand words article. They had no official origin, some references described them as fallen angels, others as pagan deities and some stated that the fae were nowadays so advanced that they could appear perfectly human without any distinctive attributes. Apparently there were hundreds of types of faeries but most of them could be classed into elementals, which had a connection to air, water, fire and earth, their magic connected to the original four gods that held these powers.
I scrolled through pages and articles, I probably read about twenty different links and watched an hour of youtube, when one of the suggested links drew my attention. It described the four original faerie gods and their placement in the current world and, I didn’t know if it was because of my geolocation or mere coincidence, but Evigt Forest was listed as one of the burial places of the four gods, more specifically the Goddess of Earth.
Ahead of my arrival here I had done some research but most of what I found back at home were articles about the energy from these parts coming from a hidden piece of heaven that the angels hid from God in the hope he would change his mind.
From a romantic perspective, both theories sounded very beautiful and plausible, were it not for science and my complete lack of belief, but since I was investigating the fae, I decided to click it and read more. I discovered that there was a whole theory about the Evigt Forest and I even found calendars on when the fae were expected to visit and with what frequency.
I remained fascinated by all the quotes, references and bibliography the website mentioned. I even found an entire study on the forest alone, and it showed that over eighty percent of all the plants in Europe originated from this place or some kind of spore that multiplied and travelled from the Scandinavian Peninsula.
I clicked on another link that directed me to the connection to the Earth fae or ‘earthlings’ as the author called them and the Evigt. One theory affirmed that the millions of species in the forest needed a source of permanent energy, so an earthling was assigned to its keeping at all times. Apparently they would change every few years and could only abandon their position on a full moon, though no one seemed to know exactly why.
I read about another half an hour more after I had my wine refilled and started to doze off from information overload. If the Swedes believed these tales and they thought that one fae was always in the forest, it made sense for Rhylan to be upset if he thought I had insulted the spirits his family believed in. I made a mental note to apologise if I ever saw him and decided to go to bed. I cleaned the table and put the glass by the sink to wash in the morning.
As I closed one of the tabs, I recognised a name: Sylvan Regnum. I’d heard that somewhere but I could not remember no matter how much I tried to. I checked Erik’s travel list, hoping I would find it there, then I checked his instagram for a tagged location, but nothing popped up. So I went back into my browsing history and reopened the tab to read the paragraph again.
Sylvan Regnum was the capital of the Earth Kingdom, where the royal family of the earthlings resided. That did not answer my question so I started rubbing my temples, trying to remember. Where have I heard it? I knew I had, I just couldn’t place the moment when... Ansgar’s voice popped in my head. “I, Ansgar of Sylvan Regnum.”Ansgar of Sylvan Regnum? What? My pulse exploded while my fingers shook so hard that I could barely touch the keyboard.
‘Characteristics of an earth fae’ I typed and many pages digitally rolled down in front of me. I knew I would not be able to read, my body shook too hard, so I clicked one of the videos and skipped the introduction, letting the woman on the screen talk about what she knew best.
She wore a costume and looked prepared for a Halloween party, the lunar cycle painted on her forehead and wearing some kind of diadem and a green dress. With all due respect to her, I didn’t care about her outfit, all I needed was to find out the information I wanted, so I kept scrolling until some of what she spoke started making sense.
“The fae originated from…” no, that was not it, I clicked further in the video, stopping from time to time to find out what I desperately needed to know. “The Goddess of…” no, that wasn’t either. Scroll.
“Many people believe that the fae are still amongst us.” Okay, maybe that was it. I let the video play as I grabbed the wine bottle and took a big gulp from it.
“The fae can look and act similar to us, they like to eat and drink, well,” she giggled, “Maybe not the same exact food as us, I can’t imagine a fae chatting to another over cocktails.”Pizza!My brain shouted, trying to find all the similarities or whatever I thought fitted the description. He said he had never had pizza before.Big deal Anwen, some people never had bacon.
The girl continued: “They do not refer to themselves as man orwoman, that is solely reserved for humans and they feel the need to distinguish themselves from us, preferring to use other terms.” He once said that he hadn't found a female yet. I had considered that to be a language barrier and never thought about it again.
“They can travel into their kingdoms during a full moon, the energy is different due to the solar arrangement and it makes it easier to open gates into other worlds,” the girl continued to say, along with other information that didn’t seem relevant to me because I did not know that much about Ansgar and he had recently decided to stay away from me.
“The stronger the energy of a fae, the less injuries they suffer and if they do, they can heal very fast.” I did not know what to do with that information, until I did. Even though my very first memory of Ansgar remained cloudy and distorted, I could swear I had stabbed him in the stomach. He admitted that to me the second time we met by the river. So how can a person recover from a stab wound in a day or two? I had seen him shirtless, and there was no sign of an injury. And he lived in a cave for God’s sake, one that was inexplicably equipped with absolutely everything.
I started shaking feverously, my body reacting violently to the information it tried to process while big tears rolled on my face so fast that my neck soaked within a minute. “The only affliction known to fae is iron, every reference of a captured faerie mentions cuffing them in iron chains as they…” I flipped the tap closed with a noisy thump. Rhylan had brought me a bag full of iron chains and left it by the door.
He knew. That bastard knew about Ansgar and he didn’t tell me.
Chapter Twenty-Two
By the third knock, I started to get worried. I heard her moving inside the house, her breathing so rugged it made it impossible not to draw attention, still she hesitated to open the door. A million thoughts passed through my mind, could she have seen my wounds from the other day and gotten scared? Was she so upset about my failing to attend our date that she blatantly refused to let me in? If so, why did she open the door last time, when I kissed her?
